How long to go through Jolly Phonics phases 1 - 6?

[Ahmawa]

I was wondering the speed at which jolly phonics is taught in schools. Are children expected to complete phase 6 by the end of Year 1?

[Norestformrz]

Jolly phonics doesn't have any phases.
The only "programme" with phases is Letters and Sounds which is meant to be completed by the end if Y2.

[Ahmawa]

At reception the teacher has started phase 3 letters and sounds - is this rushing it then if the phase 6 is to be completed by end of year 2?

[Norestformrz]

Children are expected to cover phases 2-4 in Reception (one spelling for all 44 sounds and blending and segmenting words with adjacent consonants at the beginning and end) so plenty to cover

[eromdap]

My reception class have just started phase 3. We aim to get to phase 4 with lower ability and possibly start a little of phase 5 with higher abilities (if ready). Occasionally some reception children move to year 1 with concrete knowledge of only phase 2 sounds and not being able to blend or segment. So there may be some recapping and consolidation work needed when the children move to year 1 before further progression continues.

[Ahmawa]

@eromdap

Do you also use word boxes and the ORT reading scheme?

How much focus is there on writing as my DS writing is not very good but I assume they focus on writing after they do reading?

[eromdap]

Not sure what you mean by word boxes, phoneme frames? Where you put one sound in each box? We are starting to get the children to write labels and captions. Higher ability can write short captions, middle ability can do labels and lowers can write initial sounds then the rest is scribed by myself , this modelling writing. We do a fair bit of modelling, finger spaces, starting on left, writing lists with one word below the previous, that sort of thing.

As for reading schemes, we have a variety including ORT, Julia Robertson’s Songbirds, alphablocks and others, some decidable, some where they combine phonic knowledge with educated guesswork using pictures. All good practice.

[Norestformrz]

By word boxes do you mean words sent home to memorise as wholes?

[Feenie]

As for reading schemes, we have a variety including ORT, Julia Robertson’s Songbirds, alphablocks and others, some decidable, some where they combine phonic knowledge with educated guesswork using pictures. All good practice.

Schemes which 'combine phonic knowledge with educated guesswork using pictures ' are NOT good practice and do not even match the NC, which requires children to practise reading using fully decodable schemes which do not require guesswork. Schemes which do this teach guessing, not reading.

[Norestformrz]

"Schemes which 'combine phonic knowledge with educated guesswork using pictures ' are NOT good practice " exactly! Shockingly poor practice

[Kokeshi123]

educated guesswork using pictures

So what happens when the pictures disappear?

[FraterculaArctica]

What should you do if your child is in a school using this poor practice? (ours is too). How would you go about raising it with the school?

[brilliotic]

Fratercula,
it depends on the school and the people running it. Generally, whoever chose the reading books (or chose to keep using them, anyway) did that thinking it was a good idea. Believing that they knew what they were doing and were making an expert decision in the best interest of the children in the school.
They therefore generally don't take well to a 'lay' person telling them they are doing it all wrong.
It takes a rare wise person to have the personal insights and professionality to not take such a suggestion as personal criticism, and to use it as an impetus to further educate themselves and then review and perhaps change earlier decisions.
You could try, you might be lucky!

In our case, with DS it wasn't too much of an issue, as he just learned to read anyway. We just had to stay on the ball to discourage guessing. With DD we have for now only received 'decodable' books but if/when she starts being given non-decodable ones, we will simply not read them, and read our own, decodable books, instead. I will not fight the school on its overall reading policy but I will make sure my child gets appropriate books and does not attempt to read books that are designed to train the child to guess.

[Norestformrz]

As brilliotic says it's difficult. If a school is actively ignoring the statutory national curriculum they're unlikely to listen to a concerned parent. If you're feeling brave I'd probably write something like " my child couldn't read this book as it doesn't match their current level of phonics knowledge and skills" in their reading record book.

[Kokeshi123]

We had this issue. I ended up lightly circling undecodable words in pencil and reading them myself. It is stupid though.

If the school is giving the impression of being clueless about teaching reading and writing, you'll just have to keep on top of it at home. Unfair, but what can you do?